


help, please help I can't -

by ADyingFlower



Series: I'm only doing this because I love you [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aftercare, Aftermath of Violence, Captivity, Conditioning, Corporal Punishment, Dark Keith (Voltron), Depression, I've been waiting ten years to use that tag, Kidnapping, M/M, Non-Consensual Cuddling, Non-Sexual Submission, Stockholm Syndrome, Suicidal Thoughts, Waterboarding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-20 17:27:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18529750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADyingFlower/pseuds/ADyingFlower
Summary: “You don’t get to leave me!” Keith snarls, shaking him. “You don’t get to fucking abandon me like everyone else!”And then he’s gone. Lance can only stare in confusion at the ceiling, until he feels rough hands tug at his ankle and fumble with the lock.He has a small moment, in which his only thought isoh no, before the lock finally clicks open.Keith grabs him by his upper arm in a white knuckled grip, hauling him up quickly with dilated eyes. “I’m very close to doing something I’ll regret, so don’t you dare fucking disobey me right now, or I swear to every god in the sky I will actually rip your throat open.”(Lance makes a dangerous mistake, and pays the price for it)





	help, please help I can't -

**Author's Note:**

> 4/12

“Left wall - no right wall! Did I say right wall, I meant left wall.”

“I,” Lance gasps, briefly touching the left wall with just the tips of his fingers before darting back to the other wall. “Fucking. Hate you.”

He gets an unopened box of pasta tossed at his back for the swear. “C’mon, just a couple more laps. What, you think you can’t do it?”

Lance raises a certain finger over his shoulder before following the abrupt switch of Keith’s index fingers to the other wall.

“I don’t see you doing this,” He shouts-pants, slamming into the right wall just as Keith yells “Left!” and he’s _so_ done. “This is worse than the fucking pacer test! And yes, I know what I said!”

A pillow slams into his head. It was worth a shot, anyways.

“Language, baby.” Keith scolds, but he still smiles as Lance collapses on the left wall, completely ignoring Keith pointing to the right. He’s not sure what kind of perverse pleasure Keith gets out of him sprinting from wall to wall, but it’s exhausting, and Lance. Is. Done.

Keith seems to get the hint, because he stops aggressively pointing, laughing softly under his breath as he goes to turn off the music. “You did good, baby. Go sit down and I’ll get you some water.”

Lance nods, sweat sticking his hair to his forehead. With a longing glance to the barricaded front door, he slumps his shoulders and drags his feet towards the bed.

His captor just smiles at his antics, like he’s an adorable puppy, and goes to put his foot back into the ankle cuff.

It’s been… he doesn’t know. A while. Spring is in full force now, and it’s evident in the whirl of the AC, on the sweat on Keith’s brow whenever he comes back inside from whatever he’s doing outside, in the coyotes he can hear howling at night.

(The last makes him anxious in a way only non-natives could be, shoulders drawn and hands twitching in his lap as Keith sleeps on next to him.)

They’ve settled into a kind of routine, now. Keith wakes him up for breakfast, and depending on how well he ‘behaved’ the day before, he could eat at the table or be hand fed. Then he’s given a book or two and left to wait while Keith goes out to run errands around the shack. Occasionally, he’s blissfully drugged out, the bitter taste clinging to his throat when Keith has to leave him alone

(All of his teeth and fingers accounted for)

Then there’s an hour of ‘exercise’, which is basically an excuse for Keith to ogle his ass - he isn't stupid - but it helps. It helps. Then lunch somewhere around midday, before their daily cuddle session.

Yes, they cuddle. Daily.

At first, Lance fought him like mad, struggling as Keith pinned the younger boy's back to his front and bracketed his chained arms with his own. It only took him about twenty minutes before Lance realized that no, Keith wasn’t planning on raping him and honestly just wanted to spoon.

Weirdo.

Now, he goes easily whenever Keith kneels on the ground beside the bed, holding onto his knees like a man begging for mercy as he asks whenever he can hold Lance.

It seems to make him steadier, if nothing else. Keith tends to get jumpy if he doesn’t have the chance to shower Lance in affection. And by jumpy, Lance means he gets fucking manic.

Lance would rather not be held down and have Keith frantically petting every inch of his available skin like he would die if he didn’t get the chance to feel Lance up that very instance again.

Yes, pretty much all of his self defense mechanisms are sarcasm now.

After cuddling - radio may or may not be optional - Keith will let him use the bathroom before dinner. Then, Keith drys his hair for him, running the backs of his fingers against Lance’s cold skin like Lance was worth more than anything else in the room.

He doesn’t understand it, Keith’s obsession, but he understands that Keith holds to his promises, and he has no intention of losing fingers _or_ teeth.

Then it’s bedtime for them, the small twin bed forcing them to pretty much sleep on top of each other every night. At this rate, it’s safe to say that he’s reaching the end of his straw.

It’s been… he doesn’t know. It’s been long. He’s tired.

Like he's back in middle school again, where he would spend hours doing nothing, sprawled on the floor drained of his energy and lifeless until his mami would kiss his head and ask him ' _hijo, what's wrong?_ ' in softly murmured Spanish. 

Depression, his unseen battle, his mami would tell him. You always make me so proud, she used to whisper, whenever he had to fight to just get up. 

He wants to go home.

Keith pads back from the kitchen with a glass of water in his hand, smiling happily at the sight of Lance waiting for him obediently in bed. But something must happen - he trips, or his hands go shaky - because Lance yelps as the glass shatters against the floor inches away from the bedframe.

“Shit!” Keith screams, hurriedly backing away from the glass. “Baby, stay right there, I’m going to get the broom.”

With that, Keith scrambles over to the door, hurriedly shoving the dining table out of the barricade and squeezing his thin form through the tiny gap he made. Leaving Lance alone with a shattered glass and his thoughts.

He’s so tired of being alone.

Distantly, he can hear the sounds of wind roaring, of Keith’s soft swearing as he digs through all of the tools kept in the side shed because they never had room to store anything unnecessary in the two room shack.

Lance stays silent, still and unassuming, as if he didn’t make a noise, then maybe the predator holding him trapped in his den wouldn’t notice him. Closing his eyes, Lance lets the noise wash over him.

His heart aches.

The wind almost reminds him of the winds down in Cuba, when a tropical storm or a hurricane would hit. When it was just a tropical storm, or even just a small enough hurricane, him and all his siblings would cheer over missing school, watching TV until the power went out. Even then, his mami would simply hum as she lit the candles, drawing the whole brood of them close to tell stories and play card games as the wind howled on overhead. When the wind and rain finally slowed down, his mami would have his papi set a blanket on the floor while she spooned out stew she kept warm in the crockpot. They would all sleep in that pile on the floor, only waking when either the power came back on or daylight crept through the windows. In the morning, his mami would be calling her work, checking in with neighbors and friends and once again consumed by everyday life, and his papi would be cursing as he tried to figure out how to get off their street and what stores were still closed while fumbling for a smoke, but for that one day, for those precious few hours, life came to a halt. 

Blinking his wet eyes open, Lance lets his gaze travel back to the shattered glass on the floor.

They won’t ever find him, will they?

In a brief surge of helplessness, he reaches down for one of the largest glass shards, awkwardly holding it to avoid stabbing his palm.

Then, he reaches down to press it to the prominent veins on his inner arm.

“ _STOP IT!_ ” A voice shrieks, shrill and ear grating, and then the glass shard is flying out of his hands as one hundred and forty pounds of a pure psychopath slams into him, sending him flopping back across the bed.

He laughs through the tears blurring his eyes. He really screwed things up, huh?

Breathing heavily through his nose, Keith leaned down until their noses were touching, keeping a deathly tight grip on the collar of his shirt until Lance was choking under him.

“You don’t get to leave me!” Keith snarls, shaking him. “You don’t get to fucking abandon me like everyone else!”

And then he’s gone. Lance can only stare in confusion at the ceiling, until he feels rough hands tug at his ankle and fumble with the lock.

He has a small moment, in which his only thought is _oh no_ , before the lock finally clicks open.

Keith grabs him by his upper arm in a white knuckled grip, hauling him up quickly with dilated eyes. “I’m very close to doing something I’ll regret, so don’t you dare fucking disobey me right now, or I swear to every god in the sky I will actually rip your throat open.”

Lance doesn’t even have time to respond before Keith yanks him harshly to his feet, not caring if he might step on the glass shards, before kicking the back of his knees. He screams, toppling to the floor in the center of the shack that has never felt smaller than it has in this moment. Scrambling to an upright position, Lance looks up at Keith with wide eyes, smartly keeping his mouth shut.

Oh god, oh god why did he listen to his fucking impulses?

Keith watches him right back, hands pulling at his hair with such obvious distress that Lance instinctively wants to comfort him, but he also wants to keep his throat in place, so he stays silent. Silent and still and unassuming.  

(He does want to live, right?)

After several moments of silence, Keith finally regains his calm as his hands relax back to his sides, face falling from an ugly mixture of fear and anger to just straight out nothingness.

It’s terrifying.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Keith says slowly, eyes cold. “First, you’re going to strip. If you won’t strip voluntarily, then I’ll make it so you can never walk again. Second, you’re going to choose a punishment. I was only gone for…thirty seconds, let’s say. In thirty seconds, I could have lost you, which is unforgivable. So you’re going to choose.”

Straightening up, Keith stares right into his eyes. “Either I drown you thirty times in the bathtub, or I belt your arms thirty times. You choose.”

“Now strip.”

Lance’s inhales sharply, hands clenching and unclenching by his sides. Keith…he’s dead serious. He’s either going to be whipped or waterboarded thirty times. He’s going to be tortured, all over his own dumb decisions. He could be reading a book right now, or cuddling with Keith right now, anything but this.

And it’s all his own damn fault.

“Lance!” Keith barks, jerking him out of his thoughts. Lance flinches, his hands fumbling the already stretched and torn collar of his shirt. Sliding his shirt overhead, he lets it drop to the ground, shaking hands trying to unbutton his jeans, only getting worse each time he fails.

Keith lets out an aggravated puff of air, storming over to do it for him. There’s nothing sexual in the way Keith yanks off his pants, leaving him in nothing but his underwear, but he whimpers all the same.

That, of all things, makes Keith calm down, his rough pulling slowing until the waistband no longer scrapes against his legs. His touch turns into a caress, as dark eyes meet his own terrified blue ones.

“This is your punishment, I’m not doing this because I want to,” Keith explains breathlessly, dropping his hands once the pants slide past his ankles. He leans forward, cupping Lance’s face, his expression at once both open and cold, soft yet harsh.

“So strip.”

Leaning back, Keith leaves Lance alone to follow the command, no help offered.

Either he strips, or Keith will make his punishment worse.

Either he gets naked in front of a psychopath in love with him, or said psychopath will just kill him.

Does he want honestly want to die?

Lance doesn’t know. Everything’s so confusing.

But his hands go to his underwear regardless.

For once, Keith’s eyes don’t rake over him in hunger, but his cool, impersonal gaze rattles Lance, leaving him quivering and shivering. Once his underwear drops to the floor with the rest of his clothes, Lance bends over his knees, hiding himself.

It feels - dehumanizing, to sit on the ground by Keith’s feet, naked and scared as Keith stands above him fully clothed.

“Good boy.” Lance shivers. “Now which one will it be: bathtub, or belt?”

At least Keith gives him the luxury of the time to choose. Both are going to hurt either way, but which will hurt worse?

Belting will for sure leave behind marks, right? He’s not sure, he didn’t exactly research whipping in high school. And thirty times? What happens if all those cuts get infected? He quakes at the thought of going to sleep with his wounded hands in that fabric contraption.

And…he can hold his breath for a while, can’t he? He used to be a swimmer, back in Cuba’s blue oceans.

Licking his lip, he lifts his head to meet Keith’s piercing gaze. “B-B-Bathtub.”

Keith nods, as if he expected it. He offers out a hand to Lance, and Lance, not being a total idiot, takes the olive branch, letting Keith pull him to his feet and lead him to the bathroom.

Regret takes up space in his stomach as Keith guides him to his knees to the tile next to the bathtub, quickly turning the handle to fill the basic with warm water. A warm hand strokes along his spine, Keith pressing a wet kiss to the nape of his neck.

He shivers. Keith smiles into his skin.

“It’ll be over before you know it,” Keith murmurs, nuzzling against him.

The drone of water, usually so comforting, feels suffocating. Lance stares at the swirling water, hands trembling against the rim of the tub, hearing the water that was pouring out come to a slow stop. It feels - feels like an invasion, a violation, to have Keith here. In his safe space. And now he fucked up, and he's paying the price.

This is insanity, isn’t?

“Deep breaths.” Lance is reminded, before Keith grabs his hair and _shoves_.

Instinctively, he thrashes in Keith’s hold, trying to heft himself out of the tub, but Keith holds firm, pressing his weight over the curve of Lance’s spine.

The water burns - into his nose, his mouth, smothering him completely. He chokes, hands fumbling from their perch on the rim to scratch at Keith’s arm, digging his nails in until he's sure he's drawn blood.

“Please,” he blubbers, but all that escapes is his precious pocket of air, lost.

But Keith holds him down. Holds him down even when his lungs  _scream_ for air. Holds him down even when his scrambling slows, eyelids drooping. Holds him down even as his hands lose their strength, weighing a thousand tons as they fall limp into the water. Holds him down even as blackness encroaches on his vision.

Then Keith jerks, yanking his head out of the bathtub. Lance gasps, blinking furiously as his lungs heave desperately for air.

God, this is so much worse than what he was expecting.

“One,” Keith mumbles, another kiss pressed to his soaked hair. “You got this, baby.”

And then he shoves Lance back under the water.

-

Time begins to merge.

He’s under the water, then he’s not. Keith sometimes pets his hair, before his grip tightens and pushes him down once more.

Slowly, things begin to match up.

Keith holds him down past him limits - he waits until Lance in on the verge of passing out before pulling him out. Lance can’t fake it either, can’t fake the way he goes limp, limbs heavy and pushed past their limit, brain fuzzy and mouth forming soundless pleas.

Around the tens, Keith starts speaking to him again, hushed confessions breathed against his ear.

“Please don’t leave me.”

“I would die without you.”

“I love you I love you I love you -”

“Don’t you ever fucking do that to me again.”

“I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you if you ever try to leave me.”

“I need you.”

“Please please why couldn’t you just stay _good_.”

“I’m only doing this because you made me.”

“You’re _mine_.”

Lance coughs against the tub as Keith pulls his head out of the water, too exhausted to even fight anymore. He just lies there, sprawled across the cold porcelain.

He opens his eyes when instead of shoving his head back under when he catches his breath, the death grip on his hair relaxes and his captor’s nails run through his hair. Keith meets his eyes, smiling warmly

“Thirty.” Keith kisses the crown of his head, looking so damn proud of him that Lance breaks a little.

It’s over.

His punishment is over.

“I-I’m sorry!” Lance wails, falling into Keith’s open arms. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! Please don’t hate me!”

“Shh, shh.” Keith hums, rocking the two of them on the wet floor. “You did so good, sweetheart. Look at you, you took your punishment so well. I’ll never hate you, I love you too much for that.”

Lance sobs into Keith’s damp shirt. He’s so tired.

The two of them stumble to their feet, exhaustion dragging Lance’s legs until Keith practically has to carry him into bed. He refuses to let go of Keith’s shirt, having to be cradled like a baby in Keith’s arms.

When he falls into bed, Keith landing with him, both of them soaked and Lance still sputtering weakly against the sheets, the two of them curl together instinctively, Keith tucking Lance’s head under his chin.

For once, Lance feels sheltered underneath him, not scared.

“I’ve got you,” Keith shushes him, running a hand up and down his bare spine. He flushes at the realization he’s naked, and that he’s been naked the entire time.

But he’s too tired to do anything about it. Even now, his eyelids feel heavy, like he’s floating through space. Keith must notice, or something, because another kiss is placed on his head before Keith bundles them up under the blanket.

Lance still cries, tears silent as he hides within Keith’s grasp. He never wants to go through that again.

And he doesn’t think Keith does either, if the tears he can feel dripping through his already sopping wet hair are any indication.

“I wanna be good to you,” Keith says, voice breaking. “I _really_ wanna be good to you. I don’t wanna be like any of those stupid foster parents. They hit me and they hit the other kids and they hit each other. I don’t like that, I won’t be like that - but you gotta, you can’t hurt me, and you can’t hurt yourself, okay? Okay? Everyone good has already left me…”

He waits until it seems that Keith is expecting an answer, simply nodding in response. It’s enough, though, as Keith hums and holds him closer.

Lance squeezes his eyes closed, feeling oh so tired.

“I wanna go home,” he mumbles, stiffening instantly once he realizes he said it aloud.

But luckily, Keith didn’t get mad. No, it was so much worse.

Keith pulls him back so they’re able to see each other's faces, staring at him with one eyebrow cocked. “What do you mean?” He asks, genuinely confused. “You _are_ home.”

Stricken, Lance can’t find the will to say anything back. His head is guided back under Keith’s chin, and still shaking, shivering under his captor’s touch, Lance lets himself succumb to the sweet siren call of sleep at last.

-

They never talk about it.

His ankle is back to being chained to the floor, but when he opens his red and aching eyes the next morning, Keith left a brand new fluffy robe by his bedside.

The glass is gone, and with the mid-calf fabric protecting him, Lance no longer feels so vulnerable, so empty, like a cracked glass seeping out water through its jagged hairline fractures at an alarming rate. Keith is back to being his doting self, cooking Lance breakfast and cuddling up behind him like usual.

If Lance is more subdued, if Keith is more fretful, than they keep their silence.

It’s only when he steps into the bathroom, the door locking behind him as he stares at the empty bathtub, that he realizes -  

_into his nose, his mouth, smothering him completely_

\- that Keith took one more thing away from him.

When Keith comes to collect him, his hair is wet from the shower, not the bath, and he lies about getting shampoo in his eyes to justify his red eyes.

It’ll be a long, long time before he can take a bath again.

**Author's Note:**

> Next: Blue


End file.
